1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a flashlight, and more particularly to a flashlight having a manually operatable device to generate electric energy for energizing flashlights or other electric facilities and/or for charging the rechargeable batteries of the flashlight.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Typical flashlights comprise one or more batteries received in a housing, and coupled to one or more light bulbs, to energize the light bulbs, and to generate lights, such as flashlights, for lighting the dark environment.
Most of the batteries are not chargeable, and should be discarded away after the electric energy of the batteries have been consumed. The other batteries may be rechargeable, and may thus be used again and again.
However, the typical rechargeable batteries are normally required to be disengaged from the flashlights, and then engaged into a charging sets, for allowing the flashlights to be charged by various electric power sources, such as the electric power sources of house families, of vehicles, of airplanes, etc.
It may take time to disengaged the batteries from the flashlights, and then engaged the batteries into the charging sets to charge the flashlights, and then engaged the batteries into the flashlights again. It may also take a long time, such as thirty minutes or longer, to charge the batteries with the charging sets. The batteries may not be charged and used right away.
In addition, in outdoors, there will be no electric power sources available, such that the batteries may not be charged outdoors, and such that the flashlights may not be used outdoors when the electric energy of the batteries have been consumed.
For solving such problems, some of the typical flashlights comprise a manually operatable device coupled to the rechargeable batteries which are then coupled to one or more light bulbs for generating electric energy to energize the light bulbs indirectly via the rechargeable batteries.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,360,860 to Johnson et al. discloses one of the typical self contained hand held portable lantern flashlights which comprises a manually operated generator for being operated by a rotatable handle to charge rechargeable batteries at a high rate for a short time.
However, when the rotatable handle is rotated in a different or reverse direction contrary to the normal or correct driving direction, the manually operated generator may be damaged, i.e., no protective device has been provide to prevent the manually operated generator from being damaged when the rotatable handle is rotated in the different or reverse direction contrary to the normal or correct driving direction.
The present invention has arisen to mitigate and/or obviate the afore-described disadvantages of the conventional flashlights.